Thursday, 9 March 2017

A look at our past history

Peter Grove a contributor at times to Wheelers Corner Blog wrote this in response to the latest W/C newsletter, [see below] and it I believe is a serious item, covering our past shameful history of colonial rule both here and in Australia. It is very informative and well worth the read.

Peter,

It’s good to see that you’re back. My ancestry is all Pongonalian. My Great
Great Grandfather Grandfather was transported to Tasmania in the early 1800’s.
His crime was one of supposedly forging Bank of

England printer’s dies. Not as it appears he ever printed any. He was an
engraver and die sinker. Whatever that was. It seems he had engraved the dies
used in the printing processes of the time, in the pattern of Bank of England
notes of the day. It seems he had the in his possession while making his way
along a street in Birmingham when he was caught with them in his possession. The
reasons for him creating the plates are completely obscure. A cousin of mine,
now deceased and prone to fanciful stories about his family history, insisted he
was no traitor, but was, in fact, a loyalist, supposedly in the thrall of Oliver
Cromwell, who history would have us believe was instrumental in leading a
revolution in Britain for some reason or other. Cousin’s story, was that the
dies would be used to create scads of counterfeit notes with which to flood the
French monetary system rendering it virtually worthless, relegating France to
its former status of a second rate nation. I have just checked out Oliver
Cromwell and found the whole story more than fanciful, but more a story of a
twisted imagination. The story about the forged dies began somewhere in the very
late 1700’s. My old bloke was arraigned at the Warwick Assizes early in the
nineteenth century, found guilty and sentenced to transportation to Tasmania for
the term of his natural, He is recorded as having landed at Port Phillip Bay,
Australia on the ship, Calcutta on October 9 1803. Here is the twist. Cromwell
was active during his political life which ended with his death in 1658. That
puts the lie to my cousin’s story. No way could my old bloke have been involved
with Cromwell who had died some 143 years earlier! My interest in that era of my
family history was only superficial, and I never thought to research the
historical facts as I have just done!

That was all a bit of background to my family history. The point of me
writing to you is your comments regarding early Pongonalian attempts in this
country to relegate the Maori inhabitants to the role of servants. Through the
years I have watched the attempts to deny Maori full equality in this country. I
just wonder if they had been given full equality, just how much they would have
enjoyed it. The Crown is simply not a benign institution, but is really a remote
entity demanding certain behaviours of its citizens. We who have grown up with
the existing situation have learned to accept it and just get on with our lives.
For how long have our Governments been subservient to the ‘Old Dart’
conscripting our young men to military service to fight other countries’ wars?
In recent years there has been a slight shift in our loyalties to the point
where we are now in the thrall of the greatest warmonger the world has ever
known. America. The subservience displayed by Kreyp to the Yanks, throughout the
years has been little else than out and out treason. New Zealand is a Sovereign
Nation quite willing and able to make its own way in the world given intelligent
loyal Government. How long will it be before the fools at the top decide they
should throw their lot in with China? Economically we are seeing greater
intrusion by Chinese Nationals day by day. How much have ‘they’ contributed to
the disgraceful Housing crises in

Auckland? The same may be said for the surreptitious take over of much of
our pristine remote and not so remote back country by American interests. How
can it possibly be that our former place in the world as one of the richest,
best, countries in that world,been allowed to decline to the dire state it finds
itself now?

Peter G.

05 9th
March 2017

1. I have returned to the land of the long white cloud after a trip
to London and Paris lasting about a month. And I have to admit that some of my
prejudices were confirmed while others were shot to hell. Let’s take for example
the British habit of tie wearing. Some so-called British and mixed raced brits
like Scottish/British Irish/British etc. have taken the tie wearing habit to the
extreme; I’d not be surprised to learn that they even wear a tie with their
PJ’s. Well sitting outside a coffee bar in London’s Piccadilly Circus area in
the middle of a working day you could hardly see a tie…ties don’t seem to go
with skinny black jeans and hoodies or tee shirts. Of course scarfs and beanies
and big wool furry style hats take one’s mind off neck ties. I got the
impression that tie wearing was not unlike the out of fashion facial tattoo of
Maori tradition. Ties for some are I think traditional throwbacks and even
status symbols of days long past. You know the educated and upper-class
[so-called] wear ties while the working class don’t… Well it would seem that a
new class of modern day Brit has arisen…and it no longer includes the University
or military tie as an indicator of an intelligent history, this new fashion
attachment is Japanese or Chinese made bits of electronic creation or inventions
costing a large chunk of one’s income these days. The fashion symbol that now
fills the London scene is the ‘I Pad’. Almost every person appears to own one,
and no matter what they are actuating doing it always includes talking into or
texting into these new wonder tools of modern man. People can be seen walking
the Street talking out loud into their I pads, I’m sure some were not really
talking to anyone other than themselves… and if that’s the case…what’s to become
of us, if we can’t stroll down the Street without needing to create the
impression of importance by talking to ourselves. My Fathers birth place was
Bristol England and I can always remember him boasting about the Clifton
Suspension Bridge because it was the first and largest suspension style bridge
in the world. He was correct it certainly was a sight worth seeing. My four day
stay in Bristol was a highlight event, my daughter who now lives in London and I
travelled to Bristol by train and booked into a Hotel close to the station. We
discovered the location where my Father was born, back then it had been a rather
large stable complex that serviced the coach route of the day. My Grandfather
was a stable-hand come horse trainer. My daughter and I were taking pictures of
the location when the now owner of unit number three invited us in. The stable
had been reconstructed into three units each one having a value of 1.7 million
pounds. I realise now what a massive step it must have been for my Grandfather
and Grandmother and their large family took, when accepting the offer of his
employer to immigrate to New Zealand to set up a breeding stud for horses in the
Hutt Valley. Bristol is about the size of Wellington and the pace of life there
was much more sedate than that of London…but the ‘I’ pad still dominated the
Street scene. Bristol is also a whiter community than London where it seems that
all the accents seem to be something other than British. Politically London was
very diverse in both what was being talked about on the Street and what was
being covered in the media. The utter contempt for the Tony Blair style
politician was obvious; they saw him as a war criminal awaiting trial…they saw
him as a back stabbing liar because of his behaviour during the Iraq invasion
and the Weapons of mass destruction period of lies by both the US and the UK…but
most of all they appeared to hate his big headed attempt to appear intellectual
and the way he and others consider themselves above the law. It is ironic how
today many British consider those seeking employment in the UK as unwanted
refugees and possible terrorists, when the UK itself has spilled its thousands,
if not millions out into the wider world because of its massive local and
regional failure to provide meaningful work and employment to its own citizens.
Just imagine what would happen if one time British peoples were forced to return
home to the UK? How would the British government handle it? We can’t blame the
people themselves who were driven or forced out of their own country as convicts
and unwanted servant class people by a society driven by class and wealth
regulation that ruled the masses. We should never forget that these status and
class driven people who offered to treat Maori people as English servant class
citizenship…and were shocked when Maori themselves accepted a partnership deal
rather than a servant / master situation. Even today some in NZ still fail to
accept the hypocrisy aspect of British colonialism. Many of the younger people
living in London today understand the hypocrisy of the past. Hence their strong
stand against the idiotic ranting of the Donald Trump stupidity regarding race
bigotry and hatred. They seem to know and recognise bullshit when they see it.
My trip to London and Paris was worth it, because it proved to me that the
feelings and needs of the ordinary working people are very similar, getting paid
a living wage, this year ‘No Hours Contracts’ grew by another million in the UK.
There are now 3 to 4 million people on NH Contracts’ in the UK. NZ has now made
NHC’s legal… I’m still analysing my findings and will report on various aspects
over the next few weeks.